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Paul Telles' Weblog

Sunday Apr 05, 2009

In Part I, we installed the xVM hypervisor and setup our OpenSolaris 2008.11 Dom0. Let's examine how to provision a fully virtualized DomU running Windows Vista with 1 command!

A fully virtualized DomU is also referred to as a Hardware-assisted Virtual Machine (HVM). HVM domains are capable of running an unmodified guest operating system that is not hypervisor aware. In order to support HVM domains, the hypervisor requires that the underlying hardware platform support either AMD's AMD-V or Intel's VT-x virtualization technology.

At the completion of this procedure, your system will be running the xVM hypervisor, an OpenSolaris 2008.11 Dom0, and a newly provisioned Windows Vista DomU.

Create A DVD ISO Image

Insert the Windows DVD. The disc will be automatically mounted by the removable volume manager rmvolmgr. Using the rmformat utility, determine the optical drive device path. Unmount the disc and create an ISO image.

Provision A HVM Domain

We're now ready to provision our HVM domain with the virt-install program. If you prefer the use of a GUI, virt-manager (aka Virtual Machine Manager) is available, the use of which is outside the scope of this blog entry. Virtual Machine Manager and the virt-install program can also be used to provision, manage and monitor Logical Domains (aka LDoms) on Sun servers with CoolThreads technology.

Primary storage for DomUs can be provisioned in a multitude of different ways -- ZFS volumes, NFS shares, iSCSI LUNs, etc. In this example, we'll use a sparse file located in Dom0 as the primary storage for our HVM domain.

Create a HVM domain with 1 virtual CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 20GB sparse file as primary storage.

Windows Vista will automatically boot and begin its installation process while displayed within a RealVNC window. Complete the Windows Vista installation process.

The following image was scaled down from 1920x1200 to 931x582.

Shutdown Windows Vista.

Remove the virtual CD-ROM device that the virt-install program created during the initial provisioning process using the virsh command. This will prevent Windows Vista from constantly mounting the ISO image at start-up.

$ pfexec virsh detach-disk vista hdc
$

If your system has an optical device and you would like to share it with the Windows Vista HVM domain, add the appropriate block device with virsh.

Sunday Mar 29, 2009

The Sun xVM hypervisor is based upon the open-source Xen virtual machine monitor developed at the University of Cambridge and work done by the OpenSolaris Xen community. It's a core component of our forthcoming xVM Server product and is readily available today from the OpenSolaris online network package repository.

Sun started in the academic community and has always fostered a close relationship with researchers in academia. The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at UT Austin collaborated with Sun, other universities, and the open-source community to build and support a High Performance Computing (HPC) system (called Ranger) comprised of 3,936 servers and 15,744 processors — the most capable HPC resource for scientific research in the nation runs the xVM hypervisor.

In a recent entry, I posted a screen shot of my workstation running Windows XP (32-bit) and Windows 7 (64-bit), both virtualized within unprivileged guest domains (aka DomUs). Let's examine how to install the hypervisor and bring up an OpenSolaris 2008.11 control domain (aka Dom0) in 4 easy steps!

At the completion of this procedure, your system will be running the xVM hypervisor and an OpenSolaris 2008.11 Dom0 for control and mangement of the virtualized environment. In future installments, we'll explore how to provision and deploy DomUs.

Edit the new entry as appropriate for your system configuration. At a minimum, you must modify the highlighted line above and add an additional line for the hypervisor. It should resemble the following:

Tuesday Mar 24, 2009

In my last entry, I used an early development build (build 63) of Solaris Express Community Edition (SXCE). SXCE is Sun's binary release for OpenSolaris developers (code named "Nevada"). The OpenSolaris 2008.11 release is based upon Nevada build 101b and is greatly improved. All of the issues that I previously identified have been resolved. Brian Leonard documented a simple, straightforward procedure to multiboot OpenSolaris and Mac OS X. I tested his procedure with the latest releases of OpenSolaris, Mac OS X, and rEFIt. It proved to be the simplest approach to date.

Sunday Mar 15, 2009

I built a new "V8 rig" to run OpenSolaris based upon the Intel D5400XS "Skulltrail" motherboard. With dual Quad-Core processors, it's an excellent enthusiast platform. OpenSolaris 2008.11 installs cleanly and quickly with great support for the on-board devices -- it's a marriage made in heaven.

Contents

Tested Configuration

Sun Fire X2100 BIOS V1.1.8

SMDC Firmware V4.13

Broadcom 5721 Firmware V3.65

OpenSolaris 2008.11

Known Caveats

Per Appendix C of the Sun Fire X2100 Server User Guide, repeatedly sending escape sequences can hang the LAN on the SMDC card. If this occurs, you must manually reboot the system using the system reset button.

Update BIOS Settings

Enable Console Redirection in the BIOS.

Configure the SMDC

Run the BMC utility from the Sun Fire X2100 Server Supplemental CD to configure the SMDC's LAN settings and set passwords for the NULL, Operator, Admin, and OEM user accounts.

Monday May 28, 2007

This entry describes how to setup a 15" MacBook Pro to multiboot Solaris Express and Mac OS X without the use of Apple's Boot Camp technology. This is a refinement and expansion of work done by Christian Kelly, Paul Mitchell and Alan Perry. Their collective experiences contributed greatly to my success.

I have not been able to instantiate the AirPort under Solaris, nor have I attempted to configure the built-in iSight camera, Bluetooth, FireWire, audio or ExpressCard/34 slot. Upon cursory examination, the Time-of-Day clock does not appear to function correctly.

I am sharing this information in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Caveat emptor!

Partition 1 is a fake partition which is designed to protect GPT-partitioned disks from tools that only understand the legacy MBR partitioning scheme. The partition ID of 0xEE denotes that partition 1 is a Protective MBR (PMBR) partition entry.

Install Solaris

More often than not, GRUB will not recognize the built-in MacBook Pro USB keyboard. That being said, it is best if you attach an external USB keyboard in order to control the stage 2 boot selection. Once the Solaris kernel boots, the built-in keyboard will function correctly.